Apple touts Office compatibility with iWork for iOS updates

Apple working to hang on to iWork customers ahead of the rumored Office for iOS.

Apple is stepping up its iWork game by publishing compatibility charts that show which Microsoft Office features are supported by the corresponding iWork apps for iOS. The charts accompanied an update to iWork for iOS on Tuesday, which the company described as a "major compatibility update" with desktop software like Office and iWork for the Mac. (iWork for Mac was also updated, largely to support the compatibility updates that came with iWork for iOS.)

Perhaps the most significant update that will interest regular Word users is that Pages can now perform Word-compatible "Track Changes." When you edit a Pages document on your iPad or iPhone, you can keep track of what's being edited and send it back to a Word user with (presumably) no major compatibility problems. The updated version of Pages can also accept or reject individual changes, or import Pages or Word documents with change tracking already in place. I know plenty of iOS-using writers, editors, and business users who are undoubtedly rejoicing at this, especially since there has yet to be an official release of Office for iOS.

Numbers and Keynote received a number of Office- and Mac iWork-compatible updates as well. Numbers for iOS can now hide/unhide rows and columns, lock/unlock objects, and preserve rich text in tables when importing or exporting files. (And don't forget the most important change: you can add reflections to objects—fancy.)

Keynote users will undoubtedly be thrilled with the added ability to import/export all PowerPoint and Mac Keynote slide sizes, in addition to the ability to import presentation themes (along with master slides). As anyone who has used Keynote to update a PowerPoint knows, few things are more painful than trying to reformat a poorly imported presentation.

Indeed, when it comes to compatibility with Office, this latest update to iWork for iOS generally aims to make life less painful. Although the long-rumored version of Office for iOS has yet to make a public appearance, Apple is undoubtedly making an effort to boost its compatibility options in hopes of keeping its iWork users around once Office does arrive for the mobile OS (which is expected next year).

Jacqui Cheng
Jacqui is an Editor at Large at Ars Technica, where she has spent the last eight years writing about Apple culture, gadgets, social networking, privacy, and more. Emailjacqui@arstechnica.com//Twitter@eJacqui

63 Reader Comments

Note that even on Microsoft's new Surface tablets, the experience is sub par. In Excel to edit a cell you have to tap the cell, then tap the "keyboard" button to bring up the on screen keyboard, then tap again to dismiss the keyboard when finished.

How else would it work? Or are you pointing out that there is an extra step needed to invoke the keyboard?

(And I'd love to see statistics on Surface owners who manage to use them for Office apps without a physical keyboard of some sort. For many uses, it seems that the Surface really isn't a tablet at all - it's actually a fucked-up netbook that happens to have touch-screen capabilities.)

Word is mostly usable without a real keyboard as is PowerPoint if you don't get fancy. You lose a lot of the screen in landscape which can be bothersome. Menu navigation isn't bad, though. Excel is barely an improvement over Numbers on iOS (haven't tried the latest update). I have a Type Cover for my Surface, though, so I don't often need to use the virtual keyboard.

I certainly agree that the Surface is less like the other tablets and more like a netbook, but that's one of the things I'm liking about it. The fact that (many) my Windows 8 apps work on my "tablet" is quite a plus; I'm surprised you still need to buy separate Mac and iOS versions of the same app.

I've been using Microsoft Word (on the Mac) for nearly thirty years -- its entire product history, since version 1.0 replaced MacWrite on my 1984 Macintosh -- and I've published two books written entirely in Word...and I can't stand it.

I can't stand it because of all the usual Microsoft reasons (at least as bears on Macintosh software). (Please don't downgrade me for "trolling" or whatever; I have years' worth of lucid, precise accumulated complaints that it's not worth going into here. Not only do the interfaces and design not work right, but the basic "document/section/paragraph/character" hierarchical metaphor is broken and should be replaced.) But I can't stop using it because nothing else truly replaces it. (All those OpenOffice variants just reproduce Word's basically-broken functionality; the only company with a truly superior approach to text and type is Adobe, as featured in Illustrator, InDesign and InCopy.)

If iWork had just three new features, which it's been maddeningly lacking, I'd switch to it instantly. Those features are:

1) full compatibility with Word's "outline view" feature (which I use constantly);

2) The ability to view a document in full "page view" editing mode without seeing the tops and bottoms of pages (along with headers and footers and a fake "page break"), with just a subtle horizontal hairline indicating the page breaks;

3) The ability to select an entire paragraph from the left (in Word, the mouse pointer flips over backwards to indicate that it's ready to left-select paragraphs or lines). Apple Pages doesn't do this and it's maddening.

If we're including the iPad version, I'd add two more features:

4) The ability to open, edit and save Word documents without clumsily creating a new iWork clone document that must be wrangled separately, creating all kinds of confusing version-control problems;

5) Adding "Back to my Mac" functionality to the iPad so that I can work with my Mac's file system directly, opening and closing Word and/or Pages documents, without wasting time screwing around in DropBox or iTunes;

5a) Making iTunes deal with folders and not just individual documents when loading/unloading material onto/off of the iPad.

Nothing I'm describing seems particularly difficult, subtle or obscure, but I've been waiting for a long time with no reward. So, I have to keep slogging away in the hated Microsoft Word.

Apple should roll Track Changes into their text services, so virtually any text app could include them. There are all too many unfortunates who're stuck with using a Word they hate just because they must have Track Changes.

My understanding is that the only new Metro apps designed for Surface can be used, with the exception of what Microsoft itself ports over, such as Office and OS utilities.

This changes with Surface Pro, but that's not released yet and is pretty expensive.

sakanagai wrote:

WhitneyLand wrote:

Note that even on Microsoft's new Surface tablets, the experience is sub par. In Excel to edit a cell you have to tap the cell, then tap the "keyboard" button to bring up the on screen keyboard, then tap again to dismiss the keyboard when finished.

Word is mostly usable without a real keyboard as is PowerPoint if you don't get fancy. You lose a lot of the screen in landscape which can be bothersome. Menu navigation isn't bad, though. Excel is barely an improvement over Numbers on iOS (haven't tried the latest update). I have a Type Cover for my Surface, though, so I don't often need to use the virtual keyboard.

I certainly agree that the Surface is less like the other tablets and more like a netbook, but that's one of the things I'm liking about it. The fact that (many) my Windows 8 apps work on my "tablet" is quite a plus; I'm surprised you still need to buy separate Mac and iOS versions of the same app.

Apple may have a price advantage, but if editing MS Office documents is important to the user, few will want to put up with any compatibility problems. There is a huge opportunity for MS office on iOS, if it is done right.

Edit: formatting

You better not use Office for Mac then, as that has compatibility problems.

I agree with the first commenter, huge opportunity still exists for MS Office.

I've been trying to decide on the most Office-compatible solution for my iPad, just to allow *some* real work on it, and it is a difficult comparison (Docs to Go, QuickOffice, Office2, etcetera) without buying them and using each one. Reviewers and app sales pitches don't tend to focus on the nitty-gritty of what formatting and features are either suspended or lost.

One example -- do any of these iOS word processors use/maintain MS Word's Styles and the document map that is enabled by using header styles? That's a life-saver for editing long multi-chapter documents.

MS word is in the past, Pages has been one of the five of paid programs in the App Store, since the iPad's introduction and most people who use it won't be going back to word, in addition why would Microsoft put one of their flagship cash cows (Arm cpu version at that) on a competitor's platform.

Apple may have a price advantage, but if editing MS Office documents is important to the user, few will want to put up with any compatibility problems. There is a huge opportunity for MS office on iOS, if it is done right.

Edit: formatting

And with nary a whisper of FUD, you get the same result: why would a corporate type waste ANY energy / time dealing with incompatibilities to save $50? …$350?

OTOH, Office faces a huge risk of irrelevance: if tablet / phone apps work fine with just a couple quick 'n dirty apps, or maybe Keynote is sufficiently standalone for some people, compatibility shrinks to resemble the islands of WordPerfect in some legal and government environments. If I were running Microsoft*, I would release a $5 Lite suite with no pretensions of compatibility, a $50 one with somewhat limited features and a full-throated version at full price. Why not have that business?

* (Afterwards, I'd shoot myself.)

Although I'm not surprised that Microsoft is trying to protect their Windows/Office assets, the reality is that tablets are outpacing PCs at the moment. Microsoft is 5 years too late with Phone and is making a gallant try with a hail mary called Windows RT/Surface, but I suspect they're going to have to give in and release IOS and Android versions of Office soon or else face irrelevance. Google Docs and Apple iWork will have some users. Personally, I can work entirely in iWork for personal work, but the fear of compatibility causes me to avoid iWork and just use the real MS Office for work. Alas, this could open a pandora's box. If Microsoft's Office apps for tablets has the same compatibility questions that the other office products have, then they will dilute the value of their own products line. It has to come out rock solid or not come out at all.

Same goes for Nintendo.... they need to release the Mario franchise to IOS and Android and stop trying to build hardware. They are just too stubborn to do it.

A Android version would be pirated to death and therefore would be a complete waste of time, who would pay in the Android world no one.

in addition why would Microsoft put one of their flagship cash cows (Arm cpu version at that) on a competitor's platform.

Uh... Office for Mac? Office Web Apps? And there's already a version of Office on ARM.

Microsoft is now in the hardware business, they are are spending billions on trying to establish the Surface RT as well as Surface for Windows making a competitor's platform better isn't Microsoft's goal, remember their tablet isn't a success yet.

MS Word is in the past? Not in the business world, as demonstrated by so many of our comments and Apple's own improvements in compatibility. I don't especially enjoy using MS Office but those apps are THE class standard in my world and I know I'm not unique in that.

Yeah, I still carry a torch for Ami Pro myself but Word is king. Pay homage (compatibility) or go home.

It's interesting that with all this concern for compatability, there have been tens of millions of iPads bought BY business, for business purposes. None of them has Office. They do have several other apps to allow use with Office. But it's amazing that these companies and government agencies are using these without problems. It's impossible to believe that none are being used to create documents.

So just possibly, Office on these devices isn't all that needed. Apple seems to have an I threat inc getting enough compatibility, but no more. And what's the joke over the years about Office? "80 percent of the users use 20% of the features." So if Apple can capture say, the 40% or so that most people use, it's enough for that 80%.

It's interesting that with all this concern for compatability, there have been tens of millions of iPads bought BY business, for business purposes. None of them has Office. They do have several other apps to allow use with Office. But it's amazing that these companies and government agencies are using these without problems. It's impossible to believe that none are being used to create documents.

So just possibly, Office on these devices isn't all that needed. Apple seems to have an I threat inc getting enough compatibility, but no more. And what's the joke over the years about Office? "80 percent of the users use 20% of the features." So if Apple can capture say, the 40% or so that most people use, it's enough for that 80%.

Interesting point. I'm not sure if I'm right about this, but it occurs to me that my complaints about Word (mentioned above) are based on the fact that I'm a writer and not a businessperson. In other words, I am not as concerned with collaborative features or presentational bells and whistles as I am with the need to labor strenuously over long (sometimes book-length) documents with the maximum leeway to pore over paragraphs, wrangle different source materials, outlines, and notes, corral various drafts, and experiment with changes in the form, content and order of elements in a long written passage.

I know that there are many writing packages designed specifically for writers, but (as I explained above) I'm too heavily invested (mentally and habitually) in Microsoft Word to switch to anything else. When I'm writing for hours, I just can't be in an unfamiliar software environment or even think about the software at all.

Along with track changes, preserving comments is also pretty important here, with a team of co-authors communicating via these comments in an e-mailed file the standard way to collaborate. As far as I can see, comments are lost at the moment.

This dependency on having to be able to parse .doc files correctly makes me spend far too much time in the buggy, slow & expensive Word for Mac OS X that does not even support standard shortcuts like cmd-+, alt-left arrow, pinch to zoom (or indeed ^a/^e/^t).

The sad truth of it: I use Parallels to run Windows MS Office on the Mac. Not only is it better than the Mac version (from which Microsoft stripped numerous power features), but it runs faster(!) even in a VM.

MS word is in the past, Pages has been one of the five of paid programs in the App Store, since the iPad's introduction and most people who use it won't be going back to word, in addition why would Microsoft put one of their flagship cash cows (Arm cpu version at that) on a competitor's platform.

The best educated guesses put the installed base of MS Office for Windows somewhere north of 200 million. (This is set against the installed base of 1 billion Windows users worldwide.) I don't think Office is going away anytime soon.

Apple may have a price advantage, but if editing MS Office documents is important to the user, few will want to put up with any compatibility problems. There is a huge opportunity for MS office on iOS, if it is done right.

Edit: formatting

No problem for MS. All the help files are only searchable by Bing! Clicks galore!

My understanding is that the only new Metro apps designed for Surface can be used, with the exception of what Microsoft itself ports over, such as Office and OS utilities.

This changes with Surface Pro, but that's not released yet and is pretty expensive.

Ah, yes. It seems I wasn't clear on that. I'm referring to Windows Store apps as "Windows 8 apps." I don't consider legacy software under that same umbrella as they weren't designed for Windows 8.

RT only allows installs of apps from the Windows Store, the same app store used in Windows 8. If you buy an app from that store in Windows 8, as long as it supports ARM (the Details page in the store lists compatibility), you can install it on a Windows RT device, too. You still have a five device limit, but it is agnostic to your platform.

I wish the entire world would just adopt an open format. Companies and users both would be saved so many headaches.

MS has been increasing Office's compatibility with Open Document XML formatted files.

What I don't get about the Word format is that several years ago it was widely announced by Microsoft that they were opening the format in response to the monopoly charges. This was in fact submitted and is "done." yet somehow no one else is allowed to read/write this format?

It would be childsplay to make a word processor for any platform that uses Word format but is far simpler and easier to use. Word is a horrible program with a broken UI and huge usability issues. Pages for example is quite sucky and almost a beta considering all the missing features but it already runs rings around Word on any platform.

Why on earth doesn't someone just write a simple, cheap word processor that reads and writes Word files? Microsoft would be out of business in a few years if this happened.

If MS do ever release Office for iOS it had better be as excellent as the iWork apps are* but I certainly won't be holding my breath.

As for compatibility issues, I was recently 'upgraded' to Office 2010 from 2003 at work and it borked all my charts in all my spreadsheets - and that is just one of many problems.

So, will MS be able to square the circle of releasing a mobile version of Office that has zero compatibility issues? Fat bloody chance IMO. They have never been able to do it for their desktop software (Mac to Windows versions and back, and even Windows to Windows versions have there fair share of issues) so I don't hold any hope for any iOS version.

* That is, to use - they are fantastically well designed apps. I don't worry about compatability as I start on iOS first and move to Mac second, and forget Office.

It's interesting that with all this concern for compatability, there have been tens of millions of iPads bought BY business, for business purposes. None of them has Office. They do have several other apps to allow use with Office. But it's amazing that these companies and government agencies are using these without problems. It's impossible to believe that none are being used to create documents.

So just possibly, Office on these devices isn't all that needed. Apple seems to have an I threat inc getting enough compatibility, but no more. And what's the joke over the years about Office? "80 percent of the users use 20% of the features." So if Apple can capture say, the 40% or so that most people use, it's enough for that 80%.

Interesting point. I'm not sure if I'm right about this, but it occurs to me that my complaints about Word (mentioned above) are based on the fact that I'm a writer and not a businessperson. In other words, I am not as concerned with collaborative features or presentational bells and whistles as I am with the need to labor strenuously over long (sometimes book-length) documents with the maximum leeway to pore over paragraphs, wrangle different source materials, outlines, and notes, corral various drafts, and experiment with changes in the form, content and order of elements in a long written passage.

I know that there are many writing packages designed specifically for writers, but (as I explained above) I'm too heavily invested (mentally and habitually) in Microsoft Word to switch to anything else. When I'm writing for hours, I just can't be in an unfamiliar software environment or even think about the software at all.

I imagine a writer would prefer a notebook over any tablet. That said, Word isn't the only good word processor out there. One could even get Open Office or other subs. But for many people Pages is just fine. I don't think that Apple is going after that 20% who need 80% of the features. And, of course, that is their choice.

Meh. As long as the compatibility is there - Apple has little to worry about. Office is crap on a good day in any form it comes in.

AND knowing how M$ deals with its Apple-based versions already - they'll most likely tank it and make it barely usable to begin with. So it should just make iWorks for iOS look that much better (current flaws and all).